I first met Sachin in the Indian team dressing room

Anil Kumble

I was 19 when I first met Sachin in the Indian team dressing room. He was just about 17. But already, by then, he was being spoken of as the kid who would go on to rewrite cricketing history, which he did, again and again. And already then, as now, he had his own internal mechanism for handling the pressure of expectations that came with the tag of being one of the best the world had seen. But I can assure you, that's tough. Every time he made a hundred, people expected a double. A 30-odd was a failure. And everyone wanted his wicket.

In the long career since those teenage days, I've watched Sachin have his ups and downs, battle injury and deal with everything with immaculate calm. It's an amazing quality, a blessing.
That calm is what has always fascinated me, apart from his game itself and the way he approaches it. Whenever there's been a bad decision, and this has happened quite a lot of times in his career, he comes back into the dressing room, sits in his place, looks at the TV screen and that's it.

There are no tantrums, no reproaches, nothing. I have never really seen him being upset with an unfair decision --- he is of course, but never shows it. As I'm exactly the opposite, I throw my bat, my helmet into a corner, wonder why it happened, Sachin's utter composure has been fascinating.

The other thing I've always admired is the way someone with his phenomenal talent takes nothing for granted and prepares meticulously for every situation. That's always been his way. If someone's got him out cheaply in a game, even an ODI, he'll make it a point to go after that bowler.

My most vivid memory of this has to be Chennai in 1998 against Australia. In the run up to the series, a lot was being said about Sachin versus Warne. Sachin had prepared by practicing a lot against LS (Sivaramakrishnan), but there, he got out early in first innings, to a big, spinning, widish delivery, driving and going to first slip instead. When he walked out in the second, India were under pressure having given away the lead and Australia breathing fire. He just took Warne on, kept hitting and slog-sweeping him and changed the course of the game. We won the match with more than half a day to spare.

But he's like that. Remember Sydney during that double hundred, when he completely cut out the drive after having gotten out on a couple of occasions driving earlier in the series? Or England when we last traveled, when he figured the opposition were baiting him to hook. So one of the world's best players of the hook shot, just eschewed it, taking everything on his chest and holding on before starting to play his shots again. He's brilliant in that sense.

Why it's something special is because usually, after being so good at something for so long, your ego tends to tell you, I can do this, play like this. He's not like that. He's got a brilliant mind and changes his game according to the pitch and the situation, at will.

And off the field, he's pretty chilled out. He laughs and jokes around a lot, and, has relaxed a lot more, especially over the last few years. You can see that he's totally enjoying his game and for those of us who've seen him over the years, that utter joy of playing the game is reflected in the person he is.

On a final note, while Sachin and I haven't had too many conversations over anything else but cricket, I've always admired him greatly. I've watched him and learnt from him, about being a player and a team man. They've been been some wonderful years.

Hawkeye/Chivach Sport